Computer and communication technologies continue to advance at a rapid pace. Indeed, computer and communication technologies are involved in many aspects of a person's day. For example, many devices being used today by consumers have a small computer incorporated within the device. These small computers come in varying sizes and degrees of sophistication. These small computers may vary in sophistication from one microcontroller to a fully-functional complete computer system. For example, small computers may be a one-chip computer, such as a microcontroller, a one-board type of computer, such as a controller, a typical desktop computer, such as an IBM-PC compatible, etc.
Printers are typically used with computers to print various kinds of items including letters, documents, pictures, etc. Many different kinds of printers are commercially available. Ink jet printers and laser printers are fairly common among computer users. Ink jet printers propel droplets of ink directly onto the paper. Laser printers use a laser beam to print.
An application program typically has the capability to implement certain printing options. However, many modern printers make available a wide array of options external to an application program's capabilities, such as different layout capabilities, different rendering modes, different paper selections, etc.
There have been many attempts at simplifying the understanding of print job options. Many application programs attempt WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) displays and print previews which represent the printed version of the document. Printer drivers and other software allow saving, combining, and displaying and altering settings for a plurality of print jobs. Other printer drivers allow iconic representations of different options offered by the printer.
Some known software is capable of performing a “bundle print” function. This “bundle print” function involves holding document data which are instructed to be printed by an application as print jobs in units of document data, without the document data being output to a printer. These jobs are then bundled and sent to the printer as one job. Additionally, some software allows print jobs to be displayed as preview images. Different settings may be provided for different print jobs.
In view of the foregoing, benefits may be realized by systems and methods which allow users to easily use and understand many custom options of today's printers. Benefits may also be realized by systems and methods which allow users to easily set different settings for different objects within the same print job.